The present invention relates to a process and apparatus for continuously manufacturing sandwich elements. The sandwich elements have a foam material core between two facing sheets or panels. In the process, a foam-producing reaction mixture is allowed to expand between the two facing sheets and cure to form the foam material core. A sandwich element of the desired length is then cut from the continuous sandwich thus formed by a cross cutter disposed on a carriage travelling along at the feed rate of the sandwich. After being cut away, the sandwich element is accelerated by means of a transport carriage, with a cleaning brush being passed through the gap thus formed before the sandwich element is transported away.
It is known to use a cleaning device disposed downstream of the cross cutter on a movable transport carriage to remove from the sandwich elements any cutting dust and, where the facings are metallic, any burr arising during cutting (see German patent 3,806,070). This type of construction is very expensive. In addition, problems are posed by the repeated gripping of the sandwich elements cut into lengths. Pile-ups can occur because it is not always possible to coordinate the travelling speed of the carriage of the cleaning device precisely with the feed rate of the sandwich. If a sandwich element tilts when clamped in the cleaning device, this may sometimes lead to undesirable loading of the saw blade of the cross cutter and hence to a diagonal cut.
An object of the present invention is to provide a process and an apparatus for manufacturing sandwich elements, which guarantee substantially trouble-free production even when a cleaning process is provided downstream.